Why Is Reading Out Loud Important?

Reading out loud is often associated with something you do for your children. Or you could feel only children read out loud because they are learning to read. You are right about that. Reading out loud is very important when you learn. But that doesn’t mean that only children should be using the very powerful method of learning. You should start using it in your learning process!

For most of humanity, reading has been a social activity. People read out loud so others could enjoy the texts as well. This changed only a few hundred years ago. That is when reading became much more of personal activity. We read only for our own pleasure or for learning.

You should stop doing this. Start reading out loud whenever possible. This will give you many benefits. Just be careful you check if you can start reading out loud :).

What Are The 5 Benefits Of Reading Aloud?

Reading, in general, is very good for your brain. You learn new information. You become smarter simply by doing it. There are several benefits to reading aloud. Let me share with you 5 important ones. These are improved vocabulary, focus, comprehension, recall, and better information processing. Let me explain them in more detail:

Improved Vocabulary

By reading aloud, your vocabulary increases. This is not that strange of course. You learn new words by reading and you understand how to put them in context. You also improve your pronunciation when you read aloud!

This is an important part of reading aloud. By actually reading the words aloud, you have to be very careful in the way you say them. When you read in your head (you subvocalize), you kind of hear all the words. There is often a big difference between what you hear inside your head and the way you hear the words out loud!

I notice this especially when I read a study book with Latin terminology. Words are often only recognized by their appearance, not by the way they sound! Start reading aloud and you learn to use them in the “outside world” as well :).

More Focus

Reading not just with your inner voice forces you to read all the words. There is no skipping some words and only saying keywords. You have to read all of them! This makes you look at all the words. Your attention is much better when reading. 

Note that you are seeing and hearing all the words in your book. This leaves a lot less room for thinking. Distractions like thinking about other information, tasks, and activities. You become more focused. You will be processing all your information better. 

Easier To Remember

Everything you read with more focus is sticking better in your head. Your focus helps you to understand information faster. And you know already that when you understand something, you don’t have to memorize it. 

Always try to understand as much as you can when you read. The information that you have to memorize must be connected to something. This can either be to what you learned (by association) or by using a memory technique.

You have a lot more focus when you read out loud. This helps your brain to memorize information easier. 

Remembering starts with receiving the information and storing it in your brain. Make this all easier by receiving the information in the best way possible! 

Improved Comprehension

It may not be that you read faster when you read aloud. That doesn’t matter. Nobody will ask you at your exam how fast you’ve been reading your book. The only thing that matters is how much you can remember and how well you understand everything. 

You may take a little bit longer to read your text. I am sure you can recall more and you understand your chapters better.

Process Information Better

As you understand already, reading out loud helps you with learning new information. You create more focus. Your information will enter your brain using multiple senses. Don’t rely simply on seeing. Use your auditory sense as well.

In short, a learner who reads out loud processes information better. You may not become the world’s fastest learner. You will however improve the quality of your study sessions. And this makes you a more efficient learner!

Is Reading Out Loud Better For Learning?

Reading out loud is a really good way to study. You will learn faster because of increased focus. This means next time you read about a difficult topic… you should start reading out loud. 

You may even start using different voices to make the reading even more interesting. You could change the tone of the voice. You can also apply an accent. Read your next text with an Australian, Texas, New York, or British accent. This changes the learning dynamic instantly. (and it might be fun to do as well)

use different accents and languages

After a while, when you read chapter one, or the first few paragraphs, you can change the tone of voice again. You can also stop reading out loud altogether. The moment you find your text more challenging, start reading out loud again. 

Remember that by reading out loud, you will add another modality of learning. You not only see what you read, but you also hear the words. This helps you a lot. Especially when reading is hard or the topic is new to you. 

Here’s a tip you will benefit from daily!

Start reading the summary from the book or your notes out loud. Record what you are reading. Use this audio to go over your notes while driving to work or in the gym. This easy way helps you to re-activate your notes in your brain. The more you expose yourself to your notes, the higher the chance to recall them when needed!

A big benefit of reading out loud is that you can find errors in your writing. Words that you may skip when reading silently are much more exposed when you read out loud. Always read your assignments out loud before sending them to your professor. 

Conclusion

Reading out loud is good for you. Especially when you read new material or you find it (slightly more) difficult. You are not only looking at the words passively anymore. You start reading them out loud and you have to make sounds. This helps you to focus better on the text you are reading.

Another benefit is that reading out loud helps you to hear the words you read. Not in your head only. You hear them in your ears. Hearing in your head and via your ears is very different. 

Reading an assignment out loud helps you to find errors much faster. Words may even sound differently! Start reading out loud to improve your learning! You will be able to do more studying in less time. And this leaves you time to enjoy yourself with your family. You might even read out loud for your kids…